Friday, 22 October 2010

One last thing, then I'm done - but don't hold me to that because I may come back to visit this subject again. A couple a years ago when the "Credit Crunch" first hit we took a close look at our business. In the good years we had become bloated and now we needed to tighten our belts.

We went through our figures, worked out our current breakeven, spoke to the staff and reached an agreement to tackle this head on. We cut salaries and costs, reduced hours, implemented a recruitment freeze, worked smarter and survived. It wasn't easy for any of us. We had to make sacrifices and every other business that we spoke to was in the same situation.

What happened in the public sector? They carried on regardless. In fact spending and recruitment went up and everyone complained that they weren't getting big enough pay rises. Have you ever noticed that public sector workers have become more beligerant over the years? What happened to the "civil service"? Somewhere along the way it lost it's civility and stopped serving us.

Believe me, this ain't rocket science. Now is the time to pay the piper. The 500,000 public sector job losses predicted over the next 4 years will come from the 700,000 mickey mouse jobs created over the last 10 years.

18 comments:

It is sad, for sure. As an RN working in the public sector, I was really devastated to lose my job of 21 years, serving victims of rape and child sexual abuse. It would have been a little easier to bear had the head politicians allowed us to do some of the cost saving measures we asked - working a day less a week, job sharing, etc....no, no way...and, of course, management did not lose their jobs or reduce hours, etc.

I agree with rnsane.It's the same over here in Ireland: I'm a teacher, and my job has become much more complicated and difficult over the years. I'm not, I think, about to lose my job, but we have taken a cut of almost 20%,class sizes have increased,special needs assistants have been let go, and now they're asking us to work an extra hour a week, etc At the same time, politicians are still driving (sorry, being driven) round in their Mercs.,staying in fancy hotels, racking up huge expense accounts, employing PR companies to put "spin" on everything. It makes me sick and very angry to think of how education is sacrificed, because they won't look at the root cause.And there are many cost-saving measures that would be easy to implement, if they had the political will. Bah! I give up. It's a bank holiday weekend and I'm going to enjoy it.

Rand C so agree.I have cut my business to the bone and fingers crossed to survive.The public sector gets higher wages than the private sector, and massive pensions for life -why?If the private sector has to face redundancies then time for some equality on the same basis to the other sectors. We are still better off than a lot of countries and families

I agree Mimi, as I just said to Carmen the message from leadership has to be clear. Managing change is an art and the first thing politicians should have done, as you say, was clean up their own act.

However, having said that, we all have our part to play and I know that there are many, many good honest hard working people in the public sector. The trouble is there are also many, many militants who will always slack in their job and cause trouble.

We have to do whatever we can with what we have, right where we are. If we foster good work ethics and attitudes ourselves we will shame the people that aren't pulling their weight and trying to cause dispute and disharmony.

I could go on about this all day, but I won't, apart from mentioning two incidents this week.

One was the refuse collector that parked the van across the top of my drive and when I went to drive out simply glared at me and refused to move. Public servant? Huh!

And the other was the school that was incapable or unwilling to deal with a serious case of bullying. It had gone on for 2 years.

The parents had numerous meetings to resolve the issues which included head butting, shoving, punching and threats to kill. The perpertrator was simply rewarded by being put up a class while the victim was held back.

The school also refused to keep the bully out of the playground because "we are not allowed to do that" but instead offered to exclude the victim "with your agreement". It then transpired that none of the meetings had been recorded. The boys are 9 years old!

Needless to say the victim has now been moved to another school, leaving the bully to fight another day! The world is upside down and we have to make a start on changing this by our own means and not wait for people to do it for us.

There is a huge disconnect between what we have had to do for the past two years and what the public sector is unwilling to do now isn't there VM? How on earth do we pursuade them that this is necessary for survival? And what is happening in France? They need to get real.

I have been assured by a banker friend that as a result of the measures being taken we are the best placed economy in Europe. God help us all!

Yep - rnsane said it quite succinctly. The big guys never lose their jobs - and they want all the latest gadgets that are out there as well. It doesn't matter if they don't need or use them - just so they have them to compare to the other guys who are still getting paid and golfing to boot. Someone's got to keep the golf club supported! Just because we can't doesn't mean.......bah!

And thank you too Anne & Jay. Aims, you have touched a nerve here. I think that "our leaders", particularly in the public sector, have been feathering their nests for far too long. In the UK we have local government big wigs earning massive salaries. They think that they are VIP's. But can they lead? No. They are idiots that need deposing. But how?